Saturday 21 April 2007

the perfect vegan pancake


It’s great to wake up early on a Saturday morning, Shoreditch is still asleep and the flat is so peaceful and quite.
I really fancied pancakes for a while now, so last night I made the batter and this morning in the unreal silence of a spring day I cooked them.
I followed the recipe of Michio Kushi, from the book ”The Macrobiotic Way”, an easy book that explains in a very understandable way how to approach macrobiotic, without making it sound like a Voodoo or a religion or something too abstract.
While I was preparing breakfast I remembered about the time when I was sharing a flat in Bologna, I was living with Fausto and we had always breakfast together in the weekend. Fausto used to improvise his very own pancakes, which he was very proud of. To be honest our fridge was so empty and we were so lazy that that bit of flour left in the drawer was always saving our life after a night out and too many drinks.
I don’t remember their taste at all but it was so wonderful to see Fausto improvising breakfast while singing away, always in playful mood.
My pancakes are a bit more “grown up” and the buckwheat flour makes them taste very much like the Brittany’s crepes “gallettes” as they call them.

1 cup buckwheat flour (grano saraceno)
½ cup wholewheat flour
a pinch of salt
1 ½ cup of water
Light sesame oil

Combine dry ingredients, add water mixing very well with a spoon and let the batter sit in a warm place.
This will make the batter ferment and the pancake will become lighter.

Lightly oil a skillet and heat. Place a small amount of batter on the skillet to form a round cake and fry over a medium flame, for 2/3 minutes or until the bottoms are golden and you can see bubbles popping on the surface. Flip the pancakes and cook until golden on both sides.

I served them with a blueberry sugarless jam and pumpkin compote with poppy seeds.
I wish Fausto was here having breakfast with me!

3 comments:

Arame said...

Bellissima questa ricetta!!! Mi sa che la sperimenterò subito ;)
Roberta una curiosità: sei un italiana a Londra o un'inglesina dall'ottimo italiano?

Complimenti per tuo blog!

roberta said...

Cara sono di Cesena, grazie per i complimenti e' ancora un blog giovane, devo farlo ingrassare un po'..

Arame said...

Io vivo a Ravenna... abbiamo la romagna nel dna, ma la macrobiotica nella testa ;)
Anche il mio blog è giovanissimo... ma mi piace un sacco avere una scusa per fare nuovi incontri (anche se virtuali) e uno stimolo a migliorarmi sempre
:D